Wednesday 7th May 2008.
Oh boy has it warmed up! By 10 am I decided it was going to be too warm to work inside today so a couple of outstanding plans were put into action. The first was to fit new brake pads in the van, I know it's not koi farming, but these things need doing and I'm capable! I used to work on motor vehicles a lot, but hate the job, but to have them fitted by a garage would have been more hassle than fitting them myself. That brought me up to lunchtime when Stuart arrived with his wife Sarah, she had not been to the farm for three years and was impressed with the progress. They walked down to the end of the tunnels and back, you should have seen Sarah's face on returning, it was just a little warm!
In the afternoon I started tackling a job which has needed doing for the last two years. Some of you may remember me mentioning that I have a tank outside the plant room that is where all the new water is drawn from, this tank is buried in the ground and from there the water is drawn into the plant room for processing. A couple of years ago during a period of very wet weather, this tank was running a little low on water inside, the pressure of the water outside was greater than the weight of water inside and it popped out like a cork. All of the connecting pipe work was sheared off and things came to a grinding halt. A hasty repair was made, getting the tank halfway back into the ground and this is how things have run since.
Depending on the time of year, the new water can be running for just a few hours a day to 24 hours a day. During the times when it is only running for a few hours, it can sometimes be difficult to start and often loses it's prime overnight. After this had happened a few times, I realised it would be better if the feed tank was a little higher as the water has to be drawn up hill about two metres. So this was the plan, pull the tank out of the ground and build up the ground to a level which would make the pumps prime first time every time.
The tank was drained and pipe work removed, then I had to figure a way of getting it out of it's hole. First it became obvious that I had to fill in a portion of the moat which surrounds the tunnels.
This is a photo of the 'moat' when it was first cut.
After I had made access to the area by filling the moat I sat and thought for a while, then the plan came together!
Empty tank, pump water into the area around the tank and it would 'pop' out again.
I wasn't bright enough to take a photo at the start, but this was part way through.
A series of photos as it lifted out of the hole, whilst this happened, I sat and watched!
Once the hole was full, I had reached the point where muscle power had to take over from water power, but not my muscle!
